Speculative currency shorting (usually) targes a weaker nation in the global political economy, because stronger nations can fight back by using reserves to purchase their currency on those same markes, thereby maintaining demand and protecting the currency's exchange rate. [...] Thailand had little capacity to defend the baht, and its value plummeted. The ensuing panic engendered similar attacks on other "Asian tiger" currencies, and the frantic flight of hot capital from the whole region. This only drove currency values down further, because as money leaves a country, unless it is the US dollar, it almost always changes form--the money-owner exchanges it into US dollars or some other "trustworthy" currency. This floods the market with (for example) baht, which accordingly falls in price.